On the fly News and insights, exclusive to thefly.com

2018-09-21 12:26:07

MU

Micron

$44.98

-1.08 (-2.34%)

, ADBE

Adobe

$263.26

-3.07 (-1.15%)

…12:26

09/21/18

09/21

12:26

09/21/18

12:26

Fly Intel: Wall Street's top stories at midday

Stocks opened in positive territory as the Dow and the S&P hit new all-time highs. The Nasdaq has lagged as investors continue to rotate from technology names, but its losses have been minor. Trading has been quiet so far, but that may change near the close as the market faces both "quadruple witching" and a rebalancing of the S&P 500. S&P and MSCI are overhauling their Global Industry Classification System, or GICS, and placing some of the biggest names in business - including Facebook (FB) and Alphabet (GOOGL) - in the new "communication services" sector. ECONOMIC EVENTS: In the U.S., Markit's manufacturing index rose 0.9 ticks to 55.6 in the preliminary print for September. However, the services index dropped 1.9 points to 52.9. In Europe, the services PMI was a touch ahead of expectations while the manufacturing PMI fell short of the consensus forecast. In Asia, Japan's manufacturing flash PMI ticked up month-over-month. COMPANY NEWS: Shares of Micron (MU) were down 2.5% near noon despite the company reporting better than expected fourth quarter results last night. The memory chip maker, however, provided guidance for the first quarter that Nomura Instinet analyst Romit Shah said is likely to be perceived as optimistic in light of the current environment "where competitors are seemingly planning for a protracted downturn." As such, the analyst expects the stock to remain volatile pending a moderation in the rate of price declines... In M&A news, Adobe (ADBE) announced last night that it has agreed to acquire cloud platform Marketo for $4.75B. The transaction is expected to close during Q4 of Adobe's 2018 fiscal year. Additionally, Medtronic (MDT) announced last night that it agreed to acquire all outstanding ordinary shares of Mazor Robotics (MZOR) for $58.50 per American Depository share for a total of roughly $1.64B, or $1.34B net of Medtronic's existing stake in Mazor and cash acquired. Mazor Robotics shares rose 10% in New York after the news... Meanwhile, shares of Texas Instruments (TXN) were 2% higher after the company said it will raise its quarterly cash dividend by 24%, from 62c per share to 77c, and also authorized the repurchase of an additional $12B of its common stock over time. MAJOR MOVERS: Among the noteworthy gainers was ADT (ADT), which rose 6% after the company yesterday announced a strategic initiative with Amazon (AMZN) under which ADT will support integration of Amazon's new Alexa Guard feature with the ADT Pulse security system. Also higher was Steelcase (SCS), which gained 15% after reporting quarterly results. Among the notable losers was New Age Beverages (NBEV), which fell 12% after the stock was downgraded to Hold from Buy at Maxim. Also lower was United Natural Foods (UNFI), which fell 11% after reporting quarterly results. INDEXES: Near midday, the Dow was up 89.07, or 0.33%, to 26,746.05, the Nasdaq was down 6.35, or 0.09%, to 8,021.88, and the S&P 500 was up 5.28, or 0.18%, to 2,936.03.